Courtesy of Frenchie
Paul Frangipane/Photo by Paul Frangipane, Courtesy of the NY Nurses Association
Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI
One morning in January, Gracie Nielson was scrolling TikTok when she discovered something that made her skin crawl.
DoorDash has launched a new option for its gig economy workers to earn some extra cash. The delivery service introduced Tasks, which it describes as "short activities Dashers can complete between deliveries or in their own time." It gives taking pictures of restaurant dishes or recording video of unscripted conversations in languages other than English as examples. These materials will be used to train artificial intelligence and robotics models.

Here is one way the AI data economy works in practice in 2026: a DoorDash courier straps on a body camera, washes at least five dishes, holds each one up to the lens for a few seconds, and earns a few dollars. That footage, mundane, specific, reproducible at scale, is exactly what AI and robotics […]
